Cognitive Psychology

How we process tables

https://opentextbc.ca/introductiontopsychology/chapter/8-1-memories-as-types-and-stages/

  • Sensory memory
    • Retains visual input for ~1/2 second
    • Memory without understanding
    • Where we can use visual (preattentive) attributes to highlight
  • Working memory
    • Can only hold (+/-) 5 elements at once
    • Too many elements
    • Make it easier by grouping elements

Principles of Table Reading

Tables are not tidy data in general!

  • Directionality
  • Grouping
  • Highlighting
  • Precision

Directionality / Structure

  • Think about groupings / categories in data
  • Use columns for a category if you
    • want to compare values across categories
  • In general, the conventions are
    • Read Right to Left
    • Read Up to Down

Table Directions

Unidirectional Tab
  • Unidirectional - only meant to be read in one direction
    • categorical values can be organized by row or column, but not both
    • Marginals in only one direction

Bidirectional Table
  • Bidirectional
    • categorical values arrange by both row and column
    • Marginals in both directions

Preattentive Attributes

How you get the attention at the Sensory memory level - we immediately process this kind of information:

  • Form
    • Length (quantitative)
    • Width (quantitative)
    • Orientation
    • Size (limited quantitative)
    • Enclosure
  • Color
    • Hue
    • Intensity (quantitative)
  • Spatial Position
    • 2-D position (quant)

The Brain can process at most 1 pretattentive attribute

  • “Pre-attentive symbols become less distinct as the variety of characters (hues, etc) increases” (Ware)
  • “The immediacy of any preattentive cue declines as the variety of alternative patterns increases, even if the patterns are visually distinct”
    • Runs into limitations of working memory
      • 8 distinct colors
      • 4 orientations

Gestalt Principles

  • How do we help people decide whether something is part of a group?
  • Perception principles for signalling

https://design4users.com/gestalt-theory-for-ux-designers-principle-of-similarity/

References

  • [Show me the Numbers]
  • https://nwc.design/the-science-of-infographic-design/